Physical stores continue to be main driver of retail sales

June 16, 2014 (India)

Openbravo, the preferred Commerce Platform for agile retailers and a compelling horizontal ERP Platform for any industry with sophisticated business requirements, has strengthened its presence in the retail market thanks to its flexible and easily expandable multichannel retail management solution that fits perfectly with today’s market needs and confirms Openbravo’s strategic commitment to the retail sector.

A recent study released by Openbravo reveals that IT investment priorities in retail are focused on cross-channel, mobile and cloud capabilities better adapted to the new industry challenges. Also, despite the ongoing rapid growth of online retail, physical stores will continue to be the main driver of total retail sales for several more years to come. 89% of total sales in developed markets and 95% in emerging markets still happen in physical stores.

The new cross-channel reality however, forces retailers to give physical stores a totally new role and therefore provide them with new solutions. As a result, 79% of retailers have increased their store IT budget, this year, which seems to be a trend that will continue in the coming years. And here mobile POS is getting more importance with an expected increase by a factor of 3 according to the same study.

With this solution retailers can compete more effectively by preparing their physical stores for their new strategic role to become a seamless step in a cross-channel world.

A list of existing customers in different subsectors like PT. Bintang Indo Jaya (Rotiboy), Supplies Now Inc, Escapade Esports, Keeprs, Orchidis Jardin, Halsted, BUT, Khayal Alwataniya or London Business Group have already adopted Openbravo solutions and have improved store operations, achieved higher merchandise agility, increased supply chain operations efficiency and can now get higher visibility into business performance.

Companies like Home’s Up from Groupe Adeo are strongly progressing in omni-channel by using the Openbravo Commerce Platform as the framework for a new powerful Order Management System (OMS), which integrates all their online channels and physical stores. This list is getting larger by adding big operations such as the recent La Europea in Mexico, a national wine and spirits market leader with 48 stores and more than 20,000 products.